Ed Markey: “2 years ago the House freshmen came to Washington to carry out a revolution. They promised to balanced the budget, to…”

“2 years ago the House freshmen came to Washington to carry out a revolution. They promised to balanced the budget, to slash wasteful spending, to end pork-barrel spending. Now, 2 years later, two unsuccessful Government shutdowns later, the freshmen are running scared. The voters have said no to Medicare cuts, no to education cuts, no to mean and extreme programs dealing with the environment, no to the Gingrich revolution. So what do the freshmen do now in their desperate attempt to save their own political hides? They attach $350 million for pork-barrel projects for themselves in a clean drinking water bill while more important programs, of course, are going to suffer in the 50 States where the money should have been spent. So here is what we have: One little piggy goes to Iowa; one little piggy program stays home in Ohio; one little piggy program gets money for Washington State, and other more important programs get none; and 13 vulnerable House Republicans go wee, wee all the way home with their pork. Mr. Speaker, if this is a revolution, if this is the most important thing that we can be doing in this country for the next generation, it would be like fighting the French Revolution and not attacking the Bastille for the Republicans to have all this pork in this safe drinking water bill, and for all of them to unanimously be saying vote for it.”